Whitehall was 'grateful' for evidence obtained from the torture of British citizens in Pakistan, a report claims.

Ministers were facing calls for a public inquiry last night into the allegations of collusion made in a five-year study by a leading human rights group.

Its report highlighted the cases of five UK citizens of Pakistani origin who alleged they were tortured there between 2004 and 2007 with 'clear' UK complicity.

The New-York based Human Rights Watch organisation said Britain's role was in breach of international law and risked undermining its moral legitimacy.

Researchers claim to have spoken to Pakistani intelligence agents involved in torture who say their British counterparts were fully aware of the techniques they were using on terror suspects.

UK officials, they said, were 'breathing down their necks' for information obtained from the torture of one student.

They were also alleged to have been grateful that 'all means possible' were being employed to extract evidence from a Luton man who claims to have been whipped, deprived of sleep and threatened with an electric drill.

Four of the individuals met British officials-while detained in Pakistan, the report said, at times when 'clear and visible signs of torture' were evident, including the removal of fingernails.

One of cases highlighted is that of Rangzieb Ahmed, from Rochdale.

He claimed he was beaten, whipped and had his fingernails ripped from his left hand after MI5 and Greater Manchester police drew up questions that were put to him by Pakistani agents.

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According to the report, Pakistani officials insist British intelligence services were aware of his detention and treatment at all times.

Another case is that of Zeeshan Siddiqui, from London, who alleges he was beaten, drugged and forcibly catheterised before being quizzed by British intelligence officers.

A Pakistani official is alleged to have claimed Siddiqui was detained
at the request of MI6. He was later released without charge and put
under a control order on his return to the UK. He has since gone on the
run.

Alleged abuse: Binyam Mohamed

Ministers have fiercely denied a string of allegations that the UK intelligence agencies were involved in the questioning of terrorist suspects abroad, including supplying questions for interrogators to ask.

John Scarlett, the then head of MI6, insisted in August that there had been 'no torture and no complicity in torture' by the British secret service.

But Scotland Yard is conducting criminal investigations into claims that MI5 was complicit in the abuse of Binyam Mohamed, a British resident who claims he was tortured while being held at sites in Pakistan, Morocco and Afghanistan, and MI6 over the case of a non-Briton.

'A full judicial inquiry looks increasingly unavoidable. If the Government won't hold it now, the other parties must join the Liberal Democrats to ensure one is held in the next Parliament.'

David Davis, the former shadow home secretary who first raised the issue in the Commons, said he would demand further criminal investigations from the Attorney General if ministers failed, within seven days, to promise an independent inquiry.

'This report destroys the last shreds of credibility of the Government's defence against the allegations of complicity in torture,' he said.

'It demonstrates only too clearly that those to whom British agencies implicitly sub-contracted torture did nothing to conceal it and understood that they were aware of it.

'British Intelligence officers would have had to have been wilfully blind and deaf not to know what was going on, and their normal procedures would have required them to make it clear to senior officers, who in turn would have notified ministers.

'The proper response would be to have a full judicial inquiry into the matter to discover how policy went so wrong and to prevent Britain's name from being dishonoured in this way again.'

A Foreign Office spokesman said: 'The Government rejects in the strongest possible terms the suggestion that a policy of complicity in torture has been in place.

'The report's allegations are not new and we have responded to them in Parliament. Some of these cases have already been considered and rejected by the UK courts.

'We have taken a leading role in international efforts to eradicate torture. There is no truth in suggestions that the Security and Intelligence Services operate without control or oversight.

'There is no truth in the more serious suggestion that it is our policy to collude in, solicit, or even directly participate in abuses of prisoners. Nor is it true that alleged wrong-doing is covered up.'